The Wilderness Society issued the following statement today regarding expiration of the Land and Water Conservation Fund, America’s most important conservation and recreation program that has enhanced and created parks and outdoor opportunities for more than 50 years:

Shell’s announcement today that it will abandon oil exploration in Alaska’s Arctic Ocean for the foreseeable future means the state’s northern coastal villages and marine mammals will be safe from major offshore oil spills and other oil development-related impacts.

Today, the U.S. Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management released their final conservation plans for the vast sagebrush habitat in the American West, a rugged but fragile ecosystem home to some 350 wildlife species.

Background: Today, Secretary of the Interior Sally Jewell announced a series of conservation decisions of historic scale aimed at rescuing the greater sage grouse from the threat of extinction and conserving its habitat across the West.